The Frog Prince Genotype

Abstract

In recent years, the idea thatPretty Woman (1990), Garry Marshall’s early 1990s romantic comedy, is a Cinderella story has become quite widespread. What is more, there are references to the Cinderella plot of Pretty Woman in such scholarly publications as the Greenwood Encyclopedia of Folk and Fairy Tales.² The basis for this belief seems to be that the film offers a “rags-to-riches” narrative about a young woman. Interestingly, however, there is one person who doesn’t entirely agree with this statement — the director of Pretty Woman himself, Garry Marshall. Instead, Marshall offers the parallel with George Bernard Shaw’s Pygmalion.